6/12/08
hello hello! Its day 2 (:
well… this morning I got up bright and early, actually not very early but very bright (8:40am), packed up my bags a little and headed back down to Zest for breakfast, which was really pretty good! I enjoyed the mushrooms a lot… they were done in a sauce… to cut a long story short, after much pain of packing up, checking out and sorting out accommodation at Russell, which is in the northern part of the north island, which Sana [Finnish girl at the reception] organized for us, Dad and I left Citylife Auckland for Rod and Reel, which is a fly shop in Newmarket [22 Melrose street]. We were welcomed into the shop by Yoshi, who is a very helpful and extremely friendly person. I bought 6x hare and copper, 6x Phesant tail nymph, 1 Olive Airflo Platinum fly line WF-6F, 1x 12lbs 50yard Maxima Chameleon tippet. His assistant (very helpful olderman) pointed me to Tapeka point to try some fishing.

We “finally” got on the road to Russell at about 11:15-11:30am and it was a fairly uneventful trip until Dad scared me out of my nap at about 2 hours out of Russell as the GPS had told him to do something and he assumed we had reached Russell… not fun! According to him, it had also gone blank! GRRR!!! We had lunch at a roadside parade with tourist information and 4 restaurants & art gallery- I had 1/2sandwich and hot choc. I really was not feeling hungry.

The journey to Russell is shortened by the car ferry, which newer GPS- units have. So, my dear Dad and I took car ferry across the Harbour (I cant for the life of me remember from where to where) but It was the princely sum of $10 per car, $1 per passenger. While on the ferry, we have to Detour to Kawakawa airport to get a new GPS unit on probably Monday. Trip there takes about 1h30min from Russell according to our failing GPS unit. Kawakawa has some trout fishing (Lake Opura I think-brochure in car... picked up at lunch spot) no idea if I’ll get to chuck a nymph or dry fly at some of them. Road trip now is probably going to become Auckland-Russell (2 nights)- Kawakawa (1night) - Snell’s Beach/point (1 night)- Auckland (pass through to get mum on wed)-Hamilton (2 nights)- Auckland (fly to Queenstown)

Eventually we arrived at Motel Russell at about 340pm and got settled in, room 14.The room is by the road but very quiet. Its not got any air conditioning but that’s alright with me. To indicate how cold it gets in the winter, the beds are heated and there is a heating unit located right by the door.

Having settled in, I went fishing at Tapeka Point at about 530-645. The conditions were like this, it was rather rocky, apparently low tide, visible rocks above and sub-surface, light wind, small waves and seriously clear saltwater… lost 2 white flies (Charlie and clouser) had a hit on orange thing and got snagged, Coho WF6F scuffed. Finally used new Winston rod!!! 8lbs tippet quite easy to snap in SW!!! 12lbs gives more chance… and even then I still got busted off by I think it was a snapper. Tomorrow, I’m going to go fishing! Well actually I’m going to do some more fishing tomorrow morning. And we’re going after snapper with “4 real charters” at 8am, which is run by a person named Carl who is [according to Jo, the girl who runs the motel with her hubby] a very nice person! Well in my opinion, most of these charter boat people who have a good reputation are nice and dependable people who produce results.
I have just this minute realized that… Today is the first day I actually whipped out my camera and took some photos… hardly took any. I thought the scenery was really plesant, with some breathtaking moments which I missed as its not easy to snap a picture going at 100km/h on the highway, we’ll have to see how on the next few long drives… whatever it is, I snapped about 5-8 scenery ones today. Sunset in Russell today was beautiful and knowing me I photographed some of it!!

Just a bit about Russell, very small town with 2 main streets, with a huge hill on the way to Tapeka Point. Being Foodies, we got some dinner recommendations and they were Bounty Bistro and Sally’s. I’d personally recommend Sally’s. in Russell, there are Many interesting shops, which mainly sell art and craft, in addition there is 1 small fishing shop without fly gear. But the shopkeeper was very happy to tell me where to go, and warned me about the fish sizes and stuff like that, and actually if you’ve got to measure it, its undersized! That said, this is day 2 without surfing the Internet and listening to Music!
Places to try: the wharf, rocks on either side, Tapeka point, oh yeah, and if any kiasu person decides to be smart and take undersized fish, the locals are excellent at whipping out a phone and calling their local fish and game office to hunt you down… so don’t even think about it. Taking undersized fish is just disgusting…
On a supremely happy note, I sure am enjoying myself a lot!!!! (Yes Rachel Ng, I’m having more than my fair share of fun =P). I can’t wait… going fishing tomorrow
Shit... I think I lost my PnS camera… I cant seem to find it this morning… drat!! Will have to take the SLR out on the boat I guess…